EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Mary Moniz is apt to remind her grandchildren and great-grandchildren to do one thing: Stay in school to get an education.

Moniz, who was born in Fall River to a family of Azorean immigrants on the same day World War I started — July 28, 1914 — turned 100 on Monday. Over the weekend, she reached another significant milestone.

Surrounded by generations of family members in her East Providence home on Saturday afternoon, Moniz received her diploma from B.M.C. Durfee High School. The diploma was hand-delivered by Superintendent Meg Mayo-Brown, who also brought a citation from Fall River Mayor Will Flanagan.

“She waited for that all of her life,” said Mary Porto, the eldest of Moniz’s children.

In 1930, Moniz, who had just completed her second year at Durfee, had to leave the school.

She left not by her own choice but because her family decided to return to the Azores. That was a year after the Great Depression began. Her father decided to move because he saw that economic opportunity was lacking in the U.S., and realized they had more land and more family on the island of São Miguel.

“The time of the Depression, this country was a mess,” she said. But she had long regretted never finishing high school. And even in her advanced age, Moniz still holds fond memories of growing up in Fall River and attending city schools, including the former Robeson and McDonough schools, and the old Durfee, then located on Rock Street.

“It was a wonderful place,” Moniz said of Durfee.

Had she finished high school, Moniz said, she “would have loved to be a history teacher.”

During the interview on Friday, neither she nor most of her family members knew the superintendent had planned on visiting the next day to deliver a diploma.

It was kept a surprise until the very last moment by Robert Moniz, the youngest of Mary Moniz’s three children.

In May, Robert Moniz wrote to Mitchell Chester, the commissioner for the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, to see if an honorary diploma or congratulatory certificate could be issued in honor of his mother’s 100th birthday. In that letter he wrote, “One of the major regrets of Mrs. Moniz’s life has been that she was never able to complete her high school education.”

The department forwarded the letter to Mayo-Brown.

Mayo-Brown told the family on Saturday, her response to the letter’s request was, “We’d love to be able to.”

So on Saturday, after introducing herself to Mary Moniz, Mayo-Brown said, “I have two things for you.”

Page 2 of 2 - “I never expected the superintendent,” said Moniz, who sat up in bed. She seemed both surprised by the delivery and also pleased, as family members clapped and cheered around her. “It’s a pleasure meeting you.”

Mary Moniz grew up on Columbia Street in a multifamily building near Santo Christo Church, which still stands today. During her childhood, it was just being built.

Moniz recalls bringing home bundles of leftover wood from the church’s construction site to be burned in her family’s stove. Her father worked at the American Printing Co., which was still located in Fall River at the time.

She attended Robeson and John J. McDonough schools, where her favorite subjects were reading and history.

As a fifth-grader at the Robeson School, she recited the Gettysburg Address from memory.

Her teacher that year was Miss Sterling. Moniz said she loved learning. She still remembers the first few lines from the historic speech.

She served as a translator for the rest of her family. According to her family, she would read the newspaper, and then translate stories in Portuguese for her father and other family members.

She sewed the dress she wore for her eighth-grade graduation.

Moniz met her husband during her two decades in the Azores. She doesn’t have photos from their wedding because that money was spent so she could take a taxi to show her grandmother the wedding gown she wore.

In 1949, Moniz returned to the United States, this time with a family of her own, and this time in East Providence, R.I.

It wasn’t an easy life at first. They lived in an attic of a home owned by Moniz’s aunt. They didn’t have a stove. Instead, Moniz used a hot plate to cook their meals.

Eventually they found their own housing. But life did get in the way of Moniz earning her diploma. She worked for 16 years at the Mason Can Co. Her husband did construction.

“My father helped build the New York Thruway,” Robert Moniz said.

In addition to her three children, Mary Moniz now has four grandchildren a seven great-grandchildren.

The new high school graduate also took the moment to remind her great-grandchildren of the importance of learning.